Free
by Undead Author
Summary: why did brittany keep that bird in her locker? an in-depth look at her childhood and what made her who she is. Written for the gleefics V-Day Exchange at LiveJournal. :


**A/N: Kay, guys, saddest thing I've ever had to write. I **_**literally **_**cried while writing it.**

**Also, I tried to do some good research on polio, but I'm sure I got some facts wrong. **

Brittany loved her house. Built in 1914, it was a grand, all-wood three story with a wraparound porch in the historical district of Lima. She loved the creaking stairs under her Keds. She loved the carvings in the kitchen paneling from some previous occupants ("Paula + Tess, pals for life, March 19, 1956"). It was perfect to explore in, especially the cavernous attic. Stephanie and Mike (her adoptive parents didn't like to be called Mom and Dad) had told her not to go up there, but she never ignored a chance for adventure, and that room was calling her name.

As the limber and energetic ten-year-old threw her backpack and books onto the armchair by the front door, she could hardly contain her excitement. Stephanie and Mike were going to an art exhibit downtown so they wouldn't be home until 7:30. That left Brittany with four whole hours to do whatever she wanted. First on her list was the attic. She had been in it only twice before, but she still remembered what it looked like: there was a huge four-story dollhouse, an old oven, a whole corner full of lacy, dusty hats in round boxes, and so many other interesting things.

She pulled the ladder that led to the attic down by the string hanging from the ceiling, using all of the strength she could muster. It sort of unfolded and as she pulled harder the ladder elongated. After they reached the floor, she leaned against the wall and caught her breath. Grabbing her Hello Kitty industrial-size flashlight and turning it on, she headed up the steps.

She smiled. It smelled like the bowl of dried fruits and flowers that Stephanie placed in their formal living room: faint but sweet. There was a giant leather trunk, a ratty armchair, and a tall, rickety bronze bird cage.

As Brittany walked around the space, she noticed a small window by the dollhouse. She'd never seen it from the outside of her house before; as she peered out of it she got a perfect angle into a window in her creepy neighbor's house. She didn't like him very much; he hardly ever went outside and he dressed funny.

Suddenly the man appeared at his window. She gasped and for the two seconds before ducking out of his sight, she was sure he had seen her. What would he do? Would he tell her parents she'd been in the attic? Her blood pressure rose just thinking about how they would punish her.

She decided that she would go over to his house later and explain that… she'd just heard a rat. No one had to know she disobeyed her parents.

Pushing the stairs up, she mused about how big the rat in question would be. Bigger than her head? No, that sounded suspicious. A cat? Hmm, a small cat, she decided. A kitten, maybe.

She did her homework, a worksheet for history, and watched some TV. After this she practiced her routine for dance. In her opinion, dancing was the only thing worth living for. It helped her express things she couldn't say.

_xoxoxo_

7:30 came and her parents walked in through the door laughing. She liked how much they loved each other. "Hey guys," she said in mid-leap.

Her mom smiled at Brittany. "Hi, sweetie." She kissed her on the top of her head.

"How was your day?" Mike asked.

"Good. I made a B on my math test."

"That's awesome, honey!" He ruffled her hair; she giggled, but stopped when she remembered what she had to do.

"Uhm, can I go next door?" She winced at the hesitance in her voice.

Her mother cocked her head. "To Mr. Terrence's? Why?"

_That's his name?_ Brittany thought. "He lent me this…" She scanned the room for an item to use. Spotting a plain, ballpoint pen on a table by their front door, she grabbed it and held it up. "This pen! Yeah. And I wanted to give it back to him."

Stephanie narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but Mike smiled. "Alright. Just be back before dark, okay?"

She avoided their gazes. "Sure thing."

After putting on her jacket, she headed out into the cold. The sun, bright and the same color as her red-orange Crayola crayon, was directly over the roofs of her neighborhood. She walked up to his porch and she felt as she had when she pushed Noah Puckerman down in school and had to explain herself to the principal.

Gathering all of her bravery, she knocked a tiny fist on the giant door. She stumbled backwards when the door opened immediately and would have fallen, had the man—Mr. Terrence—not grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. He was wearing a white lab coat down to his calves, khaki shorts, and a turtleneck. He had white hair shaved in a military style.

Flustered, Brittany started to thank him for helping her up. "Uhm, I—"

"You're the neighbor girl who was spying on me," Mr. Terrence said in a humorous voice.

She blinked and frowned. "I was _not_ spying on you," she said indignantly.

The man raised his eyebrows and smirked. "No?"

"No! I was—" she was drowned out by a sudden cacophony of squawks and caws. She peered past his shoulder and into the house.

There were dozens of birdcages filled with every kind of bird Brittany had ever seen and a lot that she hadn't. "Why do you have so many birds?" she asked, the attic incident now far from her mind.

"I am an ornithologist. That… means one who studies birds," he added, noting her confused look.

"You study birds?" she asked, awed.

"That's what I just said. Would you like to see them?"

She nodded vigorously. This guy wasn't as weird as she thought.

He showed her around his living room, which was really just a couch, a fireplace, and _lots_ of birds in cages. She peered into each cage as he told her their names and where they came from. There were so many that by the time he had finished, it was dark outside. "Oh my gosh! It's dark! Stephanie's gonna kill me!" Rushing towards the door, she stopped and turned around. "Can I—can I come back tomorrow or sometime?"

His eyes sparkled. "Certainly… just tell your parents the truth this time."

Her mouth dropped. "How did you…"

"Goodbye, Brittany." He ushered her out of his house with a small wave.

_xoxoxo_

Almost every day after that, Brittany visited her neighbor's house. He helped her do her homework, and she took care of his birds. Over time she learned their scientific names, what they ate, their natural habitats, and lots of other stuff. At first, though, she hadn't seen why birds fascinated him so much at first, and asked him about it one day.

"The concepts of freedom and captivity have always intrigued me. The fact that these birds have the option to fly away at any moment—" (he kept the cage doors open in case any of the birds wanted to leave) – "but choose not to absolutely boggles the mind. They have the whole world, so to speak, but they choose to limit life to right here." He motioned around the room. "I just… try to find out how they think."

She nodded, understanding it. "That's a worthwhile clause, Mr. Terrence."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "That it is, Brittany."

_xoxoxo_

One day in seventh grade, Brittany came into Mr. Terrence's house sniffling and wiping away tears. She slung her backpack down near the front door. "Today _sucked_, Mr. T."

Mr. Terrence was now in a wheelchair due to what he liked to call "his little problem", but Stephanie and Mike called it POLIO. She had to get a vaccination if she wanted to keep seeing him, because POLIO was contagious. Brittany didn't like thisPOLIO, it took away Mr. Terrence's ability to walk and he had to go to the hospital so much more often, to the point where he might be gone for days at a time. She was moody and snapped easily during these times. He also had trouble getting around to his birds, which was the worst thing.

He was back that day, however, and it was a good thing because she needed him. She had failed a history pop quiz, gotten into an argument with her _supposed_ best friend Santana Lopez, and her mother had yelled at her before school about something Brittany didn't even remember.

Mr. Terrence wheeled towards her. "What's wrong?"

She told him about her day, pausing only to wipe her eyes and nose on her sleeves.

He smiled kindly. "Come on, let me show you something."

He rolled, with Brittany following, towards a room she had never been in before. It was lined with bookshelves, and a table in the middle of the room held a beautiful ornate cage with a simple dove inside. Beside this were several blank slips of white paper, twine, and a pencil.

She frowned. "What's this?"

"This is my problem room. Whenever I feel frustrated about… say, my condition, or maybe someone's attitude towards me, I write it down. Then I tie it to Angel's leg and let him go. He always flies back, but the problems stay gone. It helps, Brittany, it really does."

She nodded and kneeled at the table. Picking up the pencil, she looked to make sure he wasn't spying on her. When she saw he was innocently scanning the books on the shelves, she wrote.

_My grades suck and Santana is mean and so is my mom. _

After she finished, Mr. Terrence reached into the cage and held Angel out for Brittany to tie the paper to. She did this, and he let the bird go out of the cracked window in the room.

She took a deep breath, and felt cleansed. It was definitely helpful. She stood so she could lean down and hug the man. "Thanks Mr. T. I really appreciate it." The hugs from him always made her feel better, like if a man in a wheelchair could hug with such happiness, then there really wasn't that much wrong with the world.

_xoxoxo_

Brittany was sixteen and in tenth grade. She hadn't been visiting Mr. Terrence as often as she used to, mainly because of cheerleading and Glee. She wanted to today, though, just to check up on him. Bundled up in a furry coat, she turned the corner onto her street, and gasped. There was an ambulance parked in front of Mr. Terrence's house, and he was being carried out on a stretcher. "_No_!" she cried, dropping her backpack and bag and running towards the EMT's.

"What are you doing? Where are you taking Mr. T? You can't take him away, you can't!" She was screaming at the assistants before she was even close to them.

An EMT stood in front of her and struggled to hold her back. "Miss, Miss, you can't touch him, you have to _stand back_."

"He's my friend! He's my best friend; you _have_ to let me see him! Please! Please!" Tears were streaming down her face and she could feel her nose flowing but she didn't care. She had been dreading this ever since she heard about POLIO.

"Miss, step back! You can not see him!"

The stretcher came closer, and Mr. Terrence had a mask over his mouth, but it didn't look like he was breathing. Brittany let out a strangled cry and collapsed. "Mr. Terrence, don't die! You can't die, you just can't!"

_xoxoxo_

Brittany, Stephanie, and Mike were sitting in a waiting room in Lima County Hospital North. There was an unsettling quiet over them that weighed down on Brittany's back as if she were carrying a boulder.

The doctor had explained what was happening. The POLIO, which had been spreading in Mr. Terrence's body for several years, had reached his lungs and stopped him from breathing. They put him on a respirator, but it wasn't helping things along very well.

"But… don't they have vaccines for it? Isn't it required?" Mike asked.

"It wasn't when Mr. Terrence was a child. By the time it had developed, it was too late for our treatments. I'm… I'm sorry but there really isn't anything else we can do, sir."

Brittany sunk in her chair and let out a whimper. _There really isn't anything else we can do_. That means death. That means you wait for the worst because there's _nothing you can do_.

She took several deep breaths and stood. "Can I see him… please?"

The doctor hesitated. "I'm not sure if—"

"Please. I just want to talk to him." Her eyes were full with tears but they didn't fall.

He yielded. "Okay, but… try not to take too long."

She sniffled, nodded, and followed him into Mr. Terrence's room.

Her neighbor was hooked up to so many machines that he seemed more metal and plastic than man. His eyes opened and his chest heaved with the weight of the gasping breaths he took.

"Brittany," he said quietly.

She bit her lip to stop herself from losing it. "Hi, Mr. T."

"You came to visit me."

"Of course I did… you're my best friend," she said, her voice cracking.

He blinked and she saw that tears were rolling down his face. "That means… so much to me…"

She walked up to him and took his hand. "What's going to happen to… to your birds?"

He smiled. "You can take… care of them… I taught you well."

She blinked several times to clear her vision. "What's gonna happen to _you_?" she whispered.

He didn't answer for a while. The beeping of the heart monitor was maddeningly loud. Finally he said, "Brittany, before I… knew you, I was trapped… Inside my house, inside… my head. But when you visited me… you helped me so much… I told you I'm… fascinated by freedom… well, Brittany, you set me free."

At that point she couldn't hold back any longer and let out a sob. He squeezed her hand weakly and continued, "And that's all… I could have asked for." At this, he let out a wheezing sigh and his grip on her hand went slack. The beeping turned into one long tone, and a nurse rushed into the room.

"You've got to get out, now!" she said to Brittany and her family. Mike pulled her out of the room while she cried and resisted.

The doctor came out and told them what they knew. He was gone. Brittany thought she heard a fluttering of wings as she received the news.

_xoxoxo_

It was the day after the funeral. Brittany was walking around Mr. Terrence's old house, and even the birds seemed to reflect her mood: there was no chirping and no songs. She walked up to her favorite bird, a little magpie named Artemis. It had a smaller cage than all the others, and it was beautiful. Suddenly, Brittany had an idea to remember Mr. Terrence by.

The next day, Brittany carried a small cage to school. She put it in her locker, and throughout the day frequently asked her teachers if she could leave class to go to the bathroom.

However, the person with the locker next to hers found out and reported her to a teacher, who referred her to the guidance counselor, Ms. Pillsbury.

Brittany sat in her office and avoided eye contact.

"So, uhm, you kept a bird in your locker, huh?" the redheaded woman asked her.

She nodded.

"Why would you do that?"

Looking Ms. Pillsbury in the eye, she said, "In memory."

_xoxoxo_

Back in Mr. Terrence's house, Brittany walked into the problem room. She could remember all too vividly the last time she was in here, and she couldn't help but think that she would have given anything to go back.

She sighed and reached in the cage to pet Angel. He peered at her inquisitively, and she knew he was expecting something.

So she found a pencil and one of the slips of paper.

_I miss my best friend_.

Tying it to Angel, she lifted him out of the window, and the boulder she had been carrying since the emergency room seemed to be rolled away.

She wasn't sure if she would be okay, but at the very least she would be free.


End file.
